Consider The Nub

There is a kind of genius expressed by Blizzard’s mission to level the curve of World of Warcraft’s original experience, slashing down brambles and rooting out malevolent fauna in an effort to grease the chute. As someone who has escaped its necrotic whorls, it feels a little like they’re diluting the meager achievements I managed to secure, but any maneuver that diminishes the petty cruelties of that arc must be seen as a kindness in aggregate.

After the blogs began to ululate about Netflix Exclusivity in the patch notes for the new NXE, this exclusivity became the story - even though it was already a known quantity. The sort of people who read these things know perfectly well that “exclusivity” no longer represents anything like the chastity of old, but an opportunity to warble in the Internet’s infinite henhouse is irresistible for a certain psychological profile.

I said this the last time people decided to make an issue out of nothing, a common pastime in this haunted realm. It has been true for almost a year now, and remains true: PS3 owners can stream the fuck out of Netflix, right now, from the same XMB interface they already like. You download and install PlayOn. Yes, it costs forty bucks, but a) you should have bought it when it was thirty, and b) leveraging the Netflix service on the Xbox requires a gold subscription - after a few months, you’re even, in terms of financial outlay. After that, you’re actually making money! Or something.

You also get access to the plug-ins, which may be a secondary concern, but an API exists and where such things thrive your investment has the potential to grow in value. The upshot is that the gyrations of the respective companies, the inevitable comparisons, the backroom antics - are all inert from our perspective. Let us be citizens of the medium. ‘Til all are one.

Unless, of course, you like being angry as a form of entertainment; in which case, by all means.